Romania canceled its presidential election last week. The first round had already been held. The top two candidates were supposed to face off on Sunday—but it all came to a screeching halt.

Romanian authorities have accused Russia of stealing the election with bots and fake TikTok accounts. But annulling a democratic election also looks a lot like a coup.

Who just stole Romania—Russia or the West?

The Case Against Russia

Călin Georgescu shocked Europe when he won the first round of Romania’s presidential election on November 24. Georgescu has no party and used TikTok for most of his campaigning. The previous favorite, Social Democrat Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, came in third place.

Georgescu is anti-nato and was kicked out of his previous party for praising leaders of the Iron Guard, Romania’s equivalent to the Nazis. With no party machinery behind him and $0 of declared spending on the campaign, how did Georgescu win the first round?

Georgescu focused his campaign on TikTok. Paid influencers boosted his campaign. TikTok failed to mark Georgescu as a political candidate, as required by law, and failed to mark the messages as paid promotions. It also failed to block these posts when ordered to do so by the Constitutional Court four days before the election. And when other leaders had to stop their campaign 24 hours before polls opened, the pro-Georgescu movement continued on TikTok.

Meanwhile, pro-Georgescu “volunteers” coordinated their messages on Telegram and competed to win cash “prizes.” These Telegram chats also passed on instructions about how to get around TikTok’s rules to prevent this kind of manipulation. Declassified documents from Romanian Intelligence Service concluded that “a very good digital marketing company” coordinated the campaign.

TikTok itself signaled someone had cheated by stating that 66,000 fake accounts had been deleted in the run-up to the election.

Some of Romania’s election infrastructure and websites came under cyberattack. The Romanian Intelligence Service could not prove Russia was behind it, but logins of some Romanian election websites were posted on a Russian cybercrime platform.

With Georgescu declaring $0 in spending, who paid for all this? Either he lied or someone else did. The declassified documents pointed the finger at organized crime or extremist movements that had pushed pro-Russia narratives in other countries.

So the evidence of Russian interference is compelling, if not conclusive. It becomes more compelling when you consider Russia’s history of electoral interference. Moldova complained of “massive interference” in its election last month. It accused Russian oligarch Ilan Shor of paying 138,000 Moldovans to vote for the more Russia-friendly candidate. Russia was accused of flying pro-Russia Moldovans to polling places across Europe. Cyberattacks and even bomb threats impeded the election, targeting polling places where anti-Russia voters were likely to be in the majority.

In Georgia’s elections in October, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe reported vote-buying, intimidation and ballot-stuffing. Both European Union and United States authorities called for more investigation into election irregularities.

There’s no question Russian President Vladimir Putin steals his own elections. In Ukraine, he poisoned a presidential candidate, sent troops into Crimea to force a referendum at gun point (only later admitting those troops were Russian), and did the same thing in parts of Donbass in eastern Ukraine. Putin clearly has no regard for democracy; it would be naive to think he doesn’t get involved in elections abroad.

The Case Against Europe

But what about the EU? There’s no history of it assassinating political opponents or bribing voters with cash. The EU allows free choice—within certain bounds. But step outside those bounds, and you find the limits of Europe’s tolerance.

In 2001, Irish voters rejected the Nice Treaty that gave more power to the EU. They were told, “Wrong answer; try again.” The next year, they accepted it. In 2005–2006, Dutch and French voters rejected the EU Constitution. So it was repackaged as the Lisbon Treaty and pushed through without giving the people another chance to block.

Ireland did hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, and it rejected it. Once again, it was told, “Wrong answer; try again.”

With that in mind, Romania’s decision to redo its presidential election looks like the EU’s “Wrong answer; try again” style of democracy has reached national elections. Romania’s pro-establishment is doing a rerun with the full support of the EU.

It’s also important to note there’s no evidence of widespread ballot fraud. The Constitutional Court of Romania ordered a recount of 10 million votes immediately after the first round of the election and found nothing untoward. Russia is accused of illegally changing the minds of Romanian citizens, but the votes seem to genuinely reflect the will of Romanian people, albeit under that influence.

Certainly election rules were broken. But enough to overturn the election? The campaigns of both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were fined for campaign finance violations. Romania’s decision sets a dangerously low bar for redoing an election.

“Romania’s constitutional court’s reasoning for canceling the presidential election: algorithms, influencers, hidden campaign financing,” Boris Kalnoky, head of Media School at Mathias Corvinus Collegium in Hungary, posted on X. “With such reasoning, every democratic election in the digital era could be canceled (if authorities don’t like the outcome).”

If Georgescu is allowed to run again, the damage to democracy might not be so bad. But it seems Romania is preparing to prosecute him and bar him from the election.

Elena Lasconi, who was to be Georgescu’s opponent in the second round of the election, said, “Today is the moment when the Romanian state trampled over democracy. God, the Romanian people, the truth and the law will prevail and will punish those who are guilty of destroying our democracy.”

“With the annulment of the democratic elections in Romania, politics and the judiciary have crossed all the red lines that distinguish a constitutional state from an autocracy,” wrote Germany’s Welt. “German media also play the role of propagandists.”

Romania’s court only recently awarded itself this kind of power over elections. It reinterpreted its constitutional mandate to oversee the procedure of electing candidates, allowing it to bar candidates it believes oppose Romania’s constitution or Romania’s EU membership. There may now be no way for Romania to reject EU membership.

And the EU has its own ways of interfering in elections. It doesn’t use oligarchs to buy voters but it does use fines. The EU fined Poland €1 million per day because it claimed Poland’s appointment of its judges was incompatible with EU law. But once Poland elected a new government, the EU lifted the fine—without any changes to judicial appointments being made. It was a fine for a government the EU didn’t like.

The EU doesn’t buy votes. But it does buy nongovernmental organizations (ngos). It gives billions of euros to ngos operating in the EU and its neighborhood. These ngos then lobby governments and push a pro-EU agenda, creating a wall of positive PR for the EU.

Then there’s the influence by the U.S.’s “deep state” on social media. It doesn’t need to resort to dark money and paid influencers to the same extent as Russia. Representatives of U.S. intelligence services in some cases have their own offices at the headquarters of these social networks. They are combating Russia’ election interference while conducting electoral interference of their own. For example, U.S. social media giants were pressured into censoring stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop in the run-up to the 2020 election. Polls indicate that without this, Donald Trump would have won the election.

The EU is quick to denounce governments it disapproves of for violations of democratic principles and the rule of law, yet it is supporting Romania. The current president will remain in place after his term expires until a new president is selected.

Can Democracy Survive?

Russia clearly attacked Romania’s democracy. And there are not easy solutions.

There are good reasons to place restrictions on democracy. America’s Founding Fathers did not allow the electorate to vote for any policy it liked. That’s why there is a Constitution. A clear majority may want to restrict free speech or religious freedom, but the First Amendment prevents them.

Georgescu called Romanian politicians who helped Germany murder Jews in the Holocaust “heroes.” There’s a case that denazifying Europe means preventing those kinds of candidates from running (though that is not the case the court is currently making).

Vladimir Putin does not value freedom and democracy—he does not allow it for his people at home.

The EU will not permit democracy to get in the way of its grand vision.

The U.S. deep state exalts its own agenda above the will of the people.

In such a world, can democracy survive? If all sides try to bend democracy to their will, it won’t last long. It is fast losing its moral high ground, as elections merely reflect who is the most effective at manipulating information—and voters.

The Bible reveals that this world is rapidly moving into a new era. For the last 200 years, Britain and America have dominated the world with the rule of law, freedom and democracy. That has been a blessing for the world.

Sadly we’ve used this freedom to indulge in all kinds of evil behaviors. Our nations lead the world in immorality. And this has been a curse to the world.

The wealth and dominance Britain and America enjoyed are not the result of their own ingenuity but a blessing from God. As Herbert W. Armstrong proved in his book The United States and Britain in Prophecy, these nations are descended from two of the tribes of Israel. God promised incredible physical blessings to Abraham’s descendants, and He fulfilled these promises in Britain and America.

Democracy could exist in this world dominated by these two powers. Yet because we used these blessings to spread sin, God is removing them. We’re shifting into what the Bible calls “the times of the Gentiles.” God calls these powers rising now “beasts.” Many people will be trampled as they clash, and democracy will not survive.

Russia is one of these beasts. A new Holy Roman Empire rising in Europe will be another. Neither will be democratic.

Meanwhile, many in a decadent U.S. and Britain have turned against virtues like the rule of law and freedom that once made them great. They are not the force for freedom they once were.

Jesus Christ spoke about “the times of the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24) and said this time would occur just before His return to Earth. This is the darkness before the dawn. To learn more, read Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry’s article “After the English-Speaking Nations Fall—What Next?”